Pulp (1972)

Director:

Mike Hodges

Writer:

Mike Hodges (written by)

Release Date:

November 1972 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Crime | Drama | Mystery | Thriller

Tagline:

Write it. Live it. But try not to be it.

Plot:

A seedy writer of sleazy pulp novels is recruited by a quirky, reclusive ex-actor to help him write his biography at his house in Malta.

Plot Keywords:

Princess | Eccentric | Stenographer | Clairvoyant | Exile

Cast

Michael Caine	...	Mickey King
Mickey Rooney	...	Preston Gilbert
Lionel Stander	...	Ben Dinuccio
Lizabeth Scott	...	Betty Cippola
Nadia Cassini	...	Liz
Dennis Price	...	The Englishman
Al Lettieri	...	Miller
Leopoldo Trieste	...	Marcovic
Amerigo Tot	...	Partisan
Robert Sacchi	...	The Bogeyman (as Roberto Sacchi)
Giulio Donnini	...	Typing Pool Manager
Joe Zammit Cordina	...	The Beautiful Thing
Luciano Pigozzi	...	Clairvoyant
Maria Cumani Quasimodo	...	Office Manageress (as Maria Quasimodo)
Liù Bosisio	...	1st Typist (as Liu Bosisio)
Cristina Gaioni	...	2nd Typist
Janet Agren	...	Publisher's Receptionist
Irene Sophie Opperman	...	Coach Hostess
Iver Gilborn	...	Coach Tourist
Elaine Olcott	...	Coach Tourist
Ave Ninchi	...	Fat Chambermaid
Ermelinda De Felice	...	Woman in Barber Shop
Werner Hasselmann	...	Tourist in Restaurant (as Werner Hassleman)
Louise Lambert	...	Tourist in Restaurant
Victor Mercieca	...	Prince Cippola
Cettina Borg Olivier	...	Gilbert's Mother
Anna Smith	...	Old Woman in Bar
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Tondi Barr	...	Gloria Swanson (uncredited)
Louis Caruana	...	Toni (uncredited)
Mary Caruana	...	Mae West (uncredited)
Anna Pace Donnella	...	Jean Harlow (uncredited)
Cyrus Elias	...	Guide (uncredited)
Jennifer Gauci	...	Shirley Temple (uncredited)
Jeanne Lass	...	Marlene Dietrich (uncredited)
Giuseppe Mallia	...	Cripple Outside Bar (uncredited)
Roy Marmara	...	Mario (uncredited)
Kate Sullivan	...	Joan Crawford (uncredited)

Directed by
Mike Hodges

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Mike Hodges		written by

Produced by
Michael Klinger	....	producer
Michael Caine	....	producer (uncredited)

Original Music by
George Martin

Cinematography by
Ousama Rawi

Film Editing by
John Glen

Casting by
Irene Lamb

Production Design by
Patrick Downing

Art Direction by
Darrell Lass

Costume Design by
Gitt Magrini

Makeup Department
Paul Engelen	....	makeup artist
Mike Jones	....	hair stylist
George Partleton	....	makeup artist

Production Management
Robert Sterne	....	production supervisor

Second Unit Director or Assistant Director
Michael Dryhurst	....	assistant director
Graham Easton	....	assistant director (uncredited)
Malcolm Stamp	....	assistant director (uncredited)

Sound Department
Peter Horrocks	....	dubbing editor
Gerry Humphreys	....	dubbing recordist (as Gerry Humphries)
Christian Wangler	....	sound recordist
Richard Laughton	....	boom operator (uncredited)

Special Effects by
Ron Ballanger	....	special effects

Camera and Electrical Department
John Jay	....	still photographer
Dusty Miller	....	camera operator
Martin Evans	....	best boy (uncredited)

Costume and Wardrobe Department
Philippe Pickford	....	wardrobe master
Yvonne Zarb Cousin	....	wardrobe assistant (uncredited)

Editorial Department
Max Bell	....	assistant editor (uncredited)
Noel Rogers	....	assistant editor (uncredited)

Music Department
George Martin	....	conductor

Other crew
Claudio M. Cutry	....	liaison: Italy
Joe De Blasio	....	liaison: Italy
Doreen Dearnaley	....	continuity
Tony Klinger	....	liaison: London
Jean Lambdon	....	unit publicist
Denton Scott	....	production accountant

Production Companies

• Three Michaels Film Productions (as A Klinger/Caine/Hodges Production)

Distributors

• United Artists Corporation (1972) (UK) (theatrical)
• United Artists (1972) (USA) (theatrical)
• 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment (2007) (USA) (DVD)
• MGM Home Entertainment (Europe) (2004) (UK) (DVD)
• MGM Home Entertainment (2004) (Germany) (DVD)
• MGM Home Entertainment (2007) (USA) (DVD)
• Opção (Brazil) (VHS)
• Wood Knapp Video (1988) (USA) (VHS)

Other Companies

• Air Studios  music recorded at
• Deluxe Digital Studios  DVD
• Lee Lighting  grip and lighting equipment

Also Known As:

Runtime:

95 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:M | Sweden:15 | USA:PG | UK:12 (video rating) | UK:AA (original rating)

Filming Locations:

Malta

Company:

Three Michaels Film Productions

Trivia:

The original title was "Memoirs of a Ghostwriter".

Quotes:

Mickey King:[voice-over] I am famous for such books as "My Gun is Long". I have many aliases. I am authors Susan Eager and Paul S. Coming. I am those and others. I am Paul Strong, Gary Rough and Les B. Han.

Movie Connections:

References The Pink Panther (1963)

Soundtrack:

Greensleeves

An unregarded gem.

"Can you walk a little faster?" said the whiting to the snail. "There's a porpoise right behind me, and he's treading on my tail..."

Michael Caine had a pretty good year in 1972. GET CARTER was one of his best-ever films, but he was also nominated, along with Laurence Olivier, for an Academy Award for his rôle in the film adaptation of Anthony Shaffer's stage play SLEUTH (neither of them got it, though - that year it went to Marlon Brando in THE GODFATHER).

More an off-beat comedy than a drama, PULP is a nice little blend of Alfie and Harry Palmer, and is a sadly unregarded gem that has nevertheless become a bit of a cult film loaded with many inside jokes. The 'three Michaels' - Mike Hodges, Michael Caine and Mike Klinger - may not have hit similar paydirt as with their GET CARTER, but the sheer knowing coolness of pulp writer Mickey King's (Caine) Chandleresque voiceover dialogue is carried off with caustic wit, panache and style ("The day started quietly enough, then I got up."); in fact, there are four Michaels if one adds Mickey Rooney - and a fifth if one includes the main character, Mickey King. Fearing possible stereotyping as a Hard Man, PULP was intended to be the opposite of Caine's hard-hitting Jack Carter character: affecting the relaxed raffish air of the self-satisfied ex-pat (he left London and his lucrative job as a funeral-director, and elbowed the wife and three kids), Mickey King glides about the Mediterranean in a dapper white corduroy suit, churning out cheap gangster fiction paperbacks under ludicrous aliases (Guy Strange, Gary Rough, Dan Wilde, Les Behan, newly-discovered Indian writer Dr. O.R. Gann, and struggling Nigerian author S. Ódomi) and hard-boiled titles (Kill Me Gently, The Kneetrembler and My Gun Is Long). In fact, his voiceover dialogue of heroic action is the opposite of his real-life reaction when confronted with dangerous situations - starting with a succession of taxis completely ignoring his hails!

Neatly filmed on Malta, G.C., the film is an odd joy from beginning to end, with little pastiches that are hommages to John Huston (the FBI agent who appears to be Bogart enquiring from whom appears to be Peter Lorre after what turns out to be a Maltese falcon ...) and wonderful quirky characters. King's publisher, Markovic, is "a Greco-Albanian born in Budapest" with a bladder problem. Obviously vegetarian, the Mysterious Englishman, Mr. Balmoral (Dennis Price), is reading Alice In Wonderland for the 118th time, and so well able to insult steak-eatin' folks from steak-lovin' Texas from it; could he be part of the developing mystery? Lionel Stander puts in a nice turn as a laid-back, ageing wiseguy ("His name was Ben Dinuccio. It was the nicest thing about him."). Starting at the Temples of Zonq, leggy Nadia Cassini (Liz Adams) shows why hotpants were - and still are! - great [Cassini went on to become a 1970s and 1980s starlet in Italian erotica and Trash flics]. Swarthy and moustachioed, Al Lettieri (Ben Miller) plays ... well, Al Lettieri, the stereotyped rôle he can never get away from: the 'heavy' - as he did in The Getaway and Mr. Majestyk - who dons the priest's garb and eventually meets with an undignified (for a heavy, that is) end. One of Gilbert's ex-wives, sexy-voiced Lizabeth Scott (Princess Betty Cippola) shmoozes suggestion as she knows The Establishment are really In Control of events (she calls her husband Dago).

But the real treat is Mickey Rooney as the faded film star, Preston Gilbert, ejected from Hollywood for his Mob associations. In a villa on a private island, with his deaf mother, companion Liz and his PR-man Dinuccio, semi-reclusive Gilbert lives the life of the wealthy idler reliving past glories by playing old 78s and corny soundbites from his Cagneyesque old gangster films, and inflicting practical jokes on unsuspecting tourists. Delightfully hamming it up, his poncing around in his skivvies [I creased-up at the double-mirror bit] and applying his toupée is a marvellous send-up of himself! With the Big Sleep approachin' Gilbert hires King to ghostwrite his lifestory plus a few revelations - "a death-rattle in paperpack, eh?" according to a sceptical King. Preston insists the book come with an opening quote from Samuel Goldwyn, "We all passed a lot of water since then."

Hodge's cutaway scenes show a nice eye for detail. Elections are due, so throughout there are street marches by elderly and not-very-impressive hangers-on of the New Front party of creepy law-and-order politician Prince Frank Cippola - a comment on then-topical real-life Prince Borghese and the quasi-establishment, certainly neo-Fascist, Spada movement. "The wizard ringing in," the dignified pain of ashamed former Partisan Signor Lepri, and the "retired gunman who drew too late - twice" supping cola at the 42nd Street Bar (King sits under a plaque saying Ave Maria) add to the quirky mystery.

Poignant are the closing scenes. Whilst King feverishly hammers out the imagined ending to his own ordeal (in which he re-uses passages from previous novels), Cippola's shooting-party have hounded a wild boar toward his shooting platform (in a scene that would be unacceptable today). Trapped, the wretched beast has nowhere to go. Safe from the boar's frantic attempts to charge the wire, it's an easy shot, no real competition. Having bagged his kill, unassailable aristocrat Cippola raises a glass of champagne to the camera. "I'll get you, you bastards ..." wails King, unable to scratch an itch ...

Yup, a gem.